


Oh, Brother.

by dirtblocks



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Boffy and Dream are brothers, Gen, I'll add character tags as they turn up. So uhh... These tags will be quite long!, Other, no beta we die like idiots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:33:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26591446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirtblocks/pseuds/dirtblocks
Summary: Boffy was always jealous of his brother Dream. After all, everyone loved Dream! He was funny, powerful, and... Well, Boffy was just just a sadistic arsonist who made self deprecating jokes even though there was no one around to hear him. But when the realm ends up in peril, and Dream ends up missing, will Boffy be able to put his mixed feelings for his brother aside and save the day?[Disclaimer: These are the youtuber's online personas. They might be ooc (because I'm not a great writer) but please don't be mad at me for it.]
Comments: 12
Kudos: 83





	1. Truth is now acceptable

**Author's Note:**

> First time writing an actual full length fic, and absolutely my first time posting! I'll probably update in bursts, so a few chapters at at time. As such, you can tell when I've posted in a burst because (While I'm writing this fic, at least) the chapters will be titled according to the song I was listening to while posting them. I might go back once I'm done and change them to have a theme though.

Everyone loved his brother, he thought bitterly. Everyone adored him, sung his praises through the lands. It was fair, to be truthful, his brother was far more skilled than he. His brother had slain countless beasts, surpassed countless challenges, and grown to rival the old ones in power. Dream, to put it frankly, was perfect.   
  
But then there was him. Boffy. He’d been in this kingdom far longer, been training for longer, but still fell far short. All he was good for was causing chaos, and living in his brother’s shadow.   
  
Every day, he would turn on his television, just to see news of his brother's prowess.   
And he would turn off the television, and kill his cows for food he didn’t even need just to get rid of the burning feeling of jealousy in his chest. Even the people he used to be friends with had become just another one of his brother’s posse.    
  
He was tired of it, hence why he’d cut them off. Moved to the outskirts. If they wanted to find him, they’d have to try pretty damned hard. He was living in the ruins of a village he’d personally destroyed, the surroundings covered in traps. It wouldn’t be impossible to get in, but most skilled enough to do so wouldn’t think it worth the effort.

His days were boring, mostly. He would build, and then destroy, mine, and then make traps. He didn’t bother trying to learn redstone, but sometimes he tried more complex traps, which usually ended up in ruins around his base.    
  
He stopped looking at his television, eventually. Stopped trying to build new traps. Barely even mined for resources. He had everything he needed anyway.    
All he did, to pass the time, was burn and kill. Destroy whatever he could find that wasn’t his. Sometimes, he would travel thousands of blocks just to find new things to kill.

And then one night, as he returned from one of said expeditions, Boffy saw people in his base.    
He ducked behind a tree, just in time, as one of them turned towards him.   
  
“I could’ve sworn I heard something.”   
“Bad, you’ve been saying that for days.”   
“Sapnap, you know these traps look familiar.”   
“Do you genuinely think Dream would’ve just run off?”   
“Well the only other option is that he’s been kidnapped, and I really don’t want to think about that.”   
“Bad.- There’s something there. In the trees.”   
  
Boffy didn’t process the conversation he’d heard, instead, he’d started running.    
All he could think of was getting the intruders away from his base. And then, he would pull out his lightning rod, and they’d be dead. But, as he heard their next words, he froze.   
“It- It looks like- It’s Dream! Bad- Bad, we found him!”   
  


Boffy no longer cared about destroying his base.   
With a roar, he turned on his heel, and charged.   
“ **_DON’T YOU DARE COMPARE ME TO HIM._ ** ”

  
The air around him sparked, and as he swung his sword, lightning struck the ground directly behind the two intruders, who leaped away just in time.   
“Wh- Dream?!-”   
“ _ SAPNAP I DON’T THINK THAT’S DREAM- _ ”   
Boffy turned towards the one who’d called him Dream, presumably named Sapnap, and charged. His sword was fully enchanted, and sparked with power. He’d forged it a while ago, the centre made of one of his precious lightning rods. One direct hit from it, and not only would you be dead, you wouldn’t respawn for a long while after. It hurt to die by, too, if the screams of the villagers were anything to go off. 

“SAPNAP-!”   
He heard a yell from behind him as he swung his sword, the blade slicing through the air, narrowly missing his opponent. He cursed, and swung again.   
Then, he felt arms wrap around his chest. It must be the other guy- Bad, he’d been called?   
In his shock, Boffy dropped his sword, which was quickly picked up by Sapnap.   
Boffy tried to writhe as much as he could, to escape the damn near death grip of Bad, but the guy seemed to be far stronger than he was. Fuck.   
But then, he had an idea. These guys thought he was Dream… They probably wouldn’t know about-   
With a laugh, the mouth on his mask opened up, and bit down hard on whatever was in front of it, which happened to be Bad’s forearm.    
He let go with a scream, and Boffy turned, grabbing him by the throat.   
“Wh-Why are you attacking me!” Bad wheezed, and Boffy simply laughed.   
“You made eye contact with me, I have to kill you now!”   
Then, he felt static from behind him, and the burning pain of a sword entering his chest.    
At least he didn’t give them the satisfaction of screaming, he thought as he died. 

  
Boffy opened his eyes to an all too familiar sight.    
The place between the void and reality.    
It was foggy there, thick black clouds making it impossible to see far.   
But what he could see terrified him.   
It was his brother, wrapped in chains of shadow, kneeling on the ground before someone Boffy had thought was long since gone. Notch. The man who was once ruler of all the lands, who’d fallen oh so far from grace.    
And in the shadows, Boffy could hear him speaking.   
  
“You broke our contract, Dream. I protected him, and for what. You haven’t done anything on your end of the deal.”   
“I’ve been trying! I-I just haven’t had a chance yet!”   
“Hmm… Perhaps I should consider someone else.”   
“N-No! I can still fulfil the deal, I swear!”   
“Oh? But I’m sure there’s others who could be far… far… better.”   
“Leave my friends out of this! You promised they wouldn’t need to know!”   
“I wasn’t thinking of your petty little following. I was thinking of someone… closer.”   
  


And with those words, Notch turned to face Boffy, and smiled.


	2. Fame is now injectable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo.... Boffy is probably really ooc here but that's Fine it's Fine everything's Fine.

Boffy woke with a yelp, tumbling off the bed and onto the hard oak floor.    
He heard a door open, and he quickly reached for where his sword should be, only to find it wasn’t there. He swore, and the door to his bedroom was flung open.

“Boffy?”   
  
Standing in the doorway, there was an unfortunately familiar face.   
Tommy. The one who’d abandoned him- Who’d ignored his cries for help when he’d first begun to fall. Tommy had moved on- had been introduced to dream, to- to everyone of dreams fucking stupid lackeys- and… And Boffy had been left alone. 

“Why are you here, Tommy.”   
“...I was worried-”   
“No you weren’t. If you were worried, then you wouldn’t have fucking ignored me for as long as you did. So what’s the real reason you’re here, fucker.”   
“Boffy- ...When sap told everyone about a strange man in the woods who looked like dream, I knew it… I knew it had to be you. I- I’ll admit, I ignored you, but… I- By the time I realized what I’d done, you were… Gone.”   
“And you’re only back now because your friend dream fucking vanished off into the void, gotcha.”   
“I- How did you find out he was gone?”   
“Because ‘sapnap’ and ‘bad’ mentioned it when they fucking stalked me- how long ago was it? Fuck… Still haven’t checked how long it took to re-spawn. Can’t’ve been that long-”   
“Three weeks. Sapnap told everyone three weeks ago, to the day.”   
“...That’s bad. That’s real bad.”   
“Well, yeah, taking that long to respawn is definitely-”   
“He killed me with my own sword, Tommy. With the lightning rod. Remember the prototypes? How easy it was to fuck with them?”   
“....Oh god. Will- Will it hurt Sapnap?”   
“I don’t think we need to be worrying about him. That sword was literally in perfect condition when I died, but something… Okay. Okay. This is bad. This is very bad. But I can fix this.”   
  
Boffy stood up, and ran into the main room of his house. He paused, looking around, and then sighed.    
“You wouldn’t happen to know where they put my sword, would you?”   
“...No.”   
Boffy cursed under his breath, and then pressed a button under the table. Distantly, he heard doors open, and with only slight hesitation, he ran downstairs, into the basement, and through a painting in his library. For a moment, he was falling, and he prepared himself to hit the water below.

He opened a second door, then flipped a few levers in the hall it led to. Behind him, he could hear Tommy fall behind him, and he scowled. But… If he was right, then he definitely couldn’t do this alone. He might have a lot of hubris, but even he knew better than to fuck with god with his hands tied behind his back. 

And so, with a sigh, he allowed Tommy into the room, and watched his once friend’s expression turn from confusion, to wonder, to fear.   
Because this room held everything. Every little thing Boffy knew about every single person he’d ever known. Every little thing about his brother’s little friends. Everything about the champions. Everything about the biomes, the creatures, and even the myths. Or, everything Boffy knew, which was still quite a lot.    
The room itself was impressive, too. The roof was made of a strange galaxy-like block, easily recognized as the same block as the end portal, covered by stained glass. And the floor… was a map, one that covered not only the entire kingdom, but the entire realm.    
  
Boffy walked forwards, over the map, and took a seat at his desk. It was covered in papers, and he shoved them to the side. His last project had been on trying to locate herobrine, but for now, that would have to wait, as he pulled a blank sheet from his draw, and pulled his quill from a jar of ink that looked suspiciously tinged with blood. 

“Okay. What do I know… Okay, firstly, the chance of the lightning rod being damaged is incredibly slim, but not impossible. But, considering what I saw… Okay.”   
On the page, Boffy had begun to make a bulleted list.    
  


-Dream is missing.   
-When I died to the lightning rod, I took three weeks to respawn.   
-Before respawning, I was in the void.   
-In the void, I 

Boffy paused. He didn’t remember what had happened in the void. And, as if on cue, he felt a small spark of magic against his skin. The necklace he wore to protect himself from the shadows-   
He pulled it out of his shirt, and assessed the damage. It was only slightly chipped, but the magic was quickly leaking. And… That meant something very, very bad.   
  
Someone had broken it.    
  
And in the back of his mind, he could only vaguely place who.   
On the paper, he wrote two more things.

-The protector is broken.    
-Notch is connected to this, somehow. 

He pinned the paper onto the wall directly behind him, and flopped face first onto the floor.   
“This is worse than I thought.”

“...Boffy? Why… Why do you have all this?”   
“If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you.”   
“Boffy.”   
“Tommy, it’s not my place to-”   
He paused, and dragged himself from the floor.   
“If I tell you this, it’ll put you in danger. And not the funny kind. The kind that my brother and I were actively trying to stop until he got a taste of fame and said it’d be fine if he kept going.”   
“...Do you have to do it alone? Whatever you’re trying to fight, I- I’m friends with some of the most skilled idiots in the realm! Surely-”   
“Do you genuinely think they’d be able to defeat notch.”   
“...I know a guy who knows a guy who’s killed-”   
“Not the old notch. You know the stories, right? About how he went mad with power?”   
“...Those are myths, though? To explain why notch was exiled? I heard it was just because… What was the reason again?”   
“Now you know the truth, you won’t remember.”   
“And how do you know all of this?”   
“..-”   
Before Boffy could respond, he heard a loud bang from outside, and he grabbed Tommy’s hand, leaping over the desk, and dragging him through another hidden door.   
  
For a moment, Tommy felt the rush of teleportation, and the two of them were standing on the roof.

And all they could see was chaos. The lightning shook the trees, and there were hundreds of mobs, all trying to get past the traps.   
“Damnnit.” Boffy muttered, breaking a hole in the roof.   
“Stay here and don’t die.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow my tumblr @boffyyyy for updates and wips pleaseeeee


	3. I never learned from my mistakes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote most of this chapter in the middle of the night! So... It's probably not great. Also I've realized while writing this that I am terrible at pacing my stories. Sorry about that.

Boffy often found that people equated age with experience. It didn’t bother him too much, while he pretty openly joked about being a teen, he also knew easily how to hide his age. It wasn’t like anyone could tell, anyway, considering how it wasn’t that hard to just.. Hide his babyface behind a well-placed disguise spell, and then, of course, his mask. Unlike his brother’s mask, his was near sentient, made of birch bark, paint, and a whole lot of magic. If he so wished, it could function as an actual face, albeit erasing his own.    
  
When he and Dream were younger, his brother would joke that they were supposed to be one single being, but because they would’ve been too powerful, they had to be two instead. After all, his brother’s skills were exclusively physical. The poor fool could barely work an enchanting table, let alone meddle with real magic. Sure, he had the code, but most here did. Boffy, however, wasn’t physically inclined in the slightest. Yes, he had stamina, but his parkour skills, and his skills in a genuine fight, were quite basic. Still above average, but his brother had made sure of that.   
  
And then, his brother had ruined everything by getting a taste of the limelight. Of course… Boffy didn’t know what had happened in the three and a half months his brother had simply vanished off the face of the earth, but he quickly assumed that his brother had simply abandoned him, and made some dark deal to rise to popularity as quickly as he had. 

And now, Boffy presumed he wasn’t all too far from the truth.    
As he ran through his house, packing what he could, he knew he had two options. Keep running, and hope Tommy escaped the horde, or ask the other to take him to the capital, and tell… And tell everyone what he knew.   
  
The selfish part of his brain told him to do it. To use this to steal his brother’s popularity. He’d wanted to join him in the limelight, so why shouldn’t he? But the larger part of his brain was angry. Angry that his brother was such a fool, and angry at himself for not stopping this a long time ago. 

As he tore the paper off his walls, and shoved it into the two large folders on his desk, he barely even noticed that he’d knocked over his ink until it had coated the pages of notes he’d shoved to the floor. The notes he’d spent ages writing, with everything he’d ever learned about Herobrine.   
He cursed, but left them there. No use in them now, he thought, as he shoved the folders into his bag, and returned to the roof.    
  
Shockingly, Tommy wasn’t dead up there, but the roof around him was littered with arrows, and he looked genuinely terrified, although his expression lit up when he saw Boffy re-appear.   
Boffy took one look around, saw the storm worsening, and the mobs continue to spawn, and he made his choice.   
  
“Tommy. I’m going to put aside how angry I am at you right now, and make you a deal. You help us both get out of here alive, and take me to the capital, and… I’ll help you get Dream back. And I’ll explain everything. Deal?”   
“Deal.”   
Boffy grinned. “Cool.”   
And then, he grabbed Tommy’s hand, and pulled the two of them off the roof.    
They were only falling for a second, but in that second, Boffy had placed water below the two of them, and quickly rolled out of it, dragging Tommy with him.    
The mobs quickly turned to face them, and Boffy ran faster than he’d ever run in his life. Part of him wished he’d grabbed a speed potion, but he knew he didn’t have the time to brew one, and unfortunately, he’d used his last pre-brewed one a while ago. 

So, the two of them just had to run, and hope that the skeleton’s aim was bad today.    
  
  
They were lucky, in retrospect. It was pretty obvious the universe had it out for them, or maybe was even fighting between giving them horrible luck and wonderful luck. Either way, It was a long run before they found a cave, but when they did, it seemed to be completely devoid of monsters. 

The two of them stood there for a while, panting, before Boffy scowled and began to block up the entrance to the cave. It would be enough to keep the monsters out, but the two of them could escape with ease.    
  
Probably.

“So. How did you find out Dream was missing?” Boffy asked as he worked, and Tommy sighed, sitting down on the cave’s floor.   
“Everyone in the Dream SMP was having a get together to discuss some ideas, and… Midway through, Dream stood up, said something was wrong and that he needed to go, and then… Well, he didn’t come back. And George found half of his mask outside in the morning.”   
“Huh. That’s… Not good.”    
Boffy cursed himself mentally. He knew his brother’s mask was just as unbreakable as his own was. The two of them had made sure of that. They’d made sure of it when they’d realized just how important hiding their faces was, and just how much danger they were in.

“Does anyone have that half?”   
“Yeah, George kept it.”   
“...Cool.”   
  
Maybe Boffy could use one half of the mask to find the other? But, the more he thought about it, the more he realized it was probably a trap. If notch was connected to this, at least. 

  
And, as if he’d summoned bad luck by simply thinking of the man, Boffy’s vision suddenly faded, and he slumped to the ground. The last thing he felt was a particularly sharp spark of magic at his chest, and the last thing he heard was Tommy’s worried yelp.

  
  


When Boffy woke up, he could tell he was dreaming. Specifically, because his brother was standing in front of him, half of his mask missing, and the two of them were standing in their childhood home.   
  
“We haven’t been here in a while.” Boffy muttered, before turning to his brother, who looked incredibly worse for wear.   
“You have to get out of here. Keep running until you find an empty world, and don’t look back.”   
“...And leave you to sort this out on your own? I know you’re not as skilled as they think, you’re not getting out of this one.”   
“If you get out, and end up safe, you can come back once you’re stronger.”   
“Look, as much as I want to get back at you, I’m not going to let your idiot friends mess with this. So, stop being cryptic, and tell me what’s happening.”   
“I can’t. There’s limits to how much I can do here right now.”   
“...So notch DOES have something to do with-”   
“How did you-”   
“I… When I died to the lightning rod, I saw you in the void. I don’t remember much other than notch was there. So, logically, it would be connected.”   
“...He threatened you.”   
“Oh.”   
“...I’m sorry.”   
“You should be. You fucked up a lot, Dream. But… we’re still brothers. Remember when I was a little kid, and you’d tell me about the adventures you wanted to go on? You always said you’d take me with you. I think there’s still plenty of time… So we’re getting you out of this, and then you owe me a damn good adventure.”   
“Boffy… I don’t think you can do this. I- Even I couldn’t-”   
“Dream, you couldn’t have won against notch like he is now. It’s that simple.”   
“I still think I could’ve prepared better.”   
“But you didn’t.”   
“...”   
“Look. As much as I want to be- as much as I  _ am _ angry at you, I know… I know the limelight is where you’ve always wanted to be. And I’m no stranger to using people as stepping stones. But… If you’d just told me, I would’ve given you a boost on the way up. You didn’t have to go and make a fucking deal with notch to become famous, you know-”   
“I- I didn’t do that-?”   
“...Then… Why were you gone for so long? Before you became famous, that is.”   
“Boffy, I… I can’t tell you right now. I’m sorry.”   
  
There was silence for a moment, and then Dream opened the door.   
“It’s time to go.”   
“I know.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, my tumblr is @boffyyyy.  
> I hope you enjoyed!


	4. Until I'm too late to do anything

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of this chapter was written at midnight too. I... Might've stayed up far later than I should've to write this. It's also a lot shorter than the others, sorry!

When Boffy woke up, he was alone in the cave he’d passed out in, and there was a hole in the wood he’d placed. So presumably, Tommy had left him.   
He wasn’t surprised in the slightest. 

However, he was surprised that the other hadn’t taken anything from his bag.   
  
He shook his head, and left the cave. He’d find food, and then he’d figure out his next move.   
  
  


Somewhere along the way, he’d found a river, and paused.   
The person looking back at him wasn’t what he’d expected to see.   
His mask was bloodstained, as were his clothes.    
He almost laughed at how murderous he looked.   
  
And then, he threw a rock into his reflection, and watched it ripple away.    
  
“Boffy?”   
He reached for a sword that wasn’t even there, before turning to face- Oh, it was just.. It was just Tommy. So he hadn’t left.   
“Unfortunately.”   
Tommy sat down at the riverside, taking off his shoes.   
“Might as well use the river to clean ourselves up, right?”   
“... No, I think looking like a murderer rather suits me.”   
“Boffy.. We’re going to have to go through civilisation, and I’d rather not travel with someone who looks like he’d snap at any second.”   
“Jokes on you, I would snap at any s-”    
Boffy’s quip was interrupted by a shirt being thrown at his face, and a loud splash.   
“The water isn’t bad, don’t worry.”   
Boffy scowled, and tossed the shirt back to Tommy.   
“HEY! I didn’t want that to get wet-”   
“Too bad.” Boffy muttered, taking a step into the river.    
  
The other boy was right, the water was actually quite a nice temperature, and he knew in his heart he should probably clean off the blood and gore that littered his person, but there was some part of him that felt apprehensive to the very concept.   
Thankfully, before he could fall deep into the maze of his thoughts, Tommy threw water directly at his face with a laugh.   
“Okay. Now you’ve just challenged me.” Boffy grinned, and leapt into the deeper water, surfacing with as little grace as he could, sending water absolutely everywhere.   
“Hey!”   
“You did start it, Tommy.”   
“Fuck you!-”    
Boffy splashed water in Tommy’s general direction, and Tommy quickly retaliated with a large splash of his own. 

Their fight didn’t last long, though. Not after Tommy jumped at Boffy, and pushed the both of them under the water. Boffy snarled, and grabbed Tommy’s leg, holding him under for a good few seconds, before dragging both of them out of the deeper water.

They surfaced with a laugh, and Boffy sat down in the shallows.   
It reminded him of when they used to hang out, before everything went to shit.

“So. What’s our plan?”   
“Get to the capital, meet with everyone, and tell them what you know.”   
“You’re not going to propose a stupid idea?”   
“I did think about asking one of them to teleport us, but that also sounds like a bad idea.”   
“...You’re smarter than I remember you being.”   
“You bitch! I’m very smart, I’ll have you know-”   
“Suuure.”   
“I’ve literally fought in a war, Boffy. I kind of have to be smart to do that.”   
“Huh.”   
“Bitchboy.”   
“Right back at you.”

  
  


Later, when they’d returned to their cave, Boffy found he couldn’t sleep at all.   
Despite the lateness of the night, and the genuine exhaustion he felt, sleep just wouldn’t come.   
Ironically, Tommy didn’t seem to be having much luck with sleep either, leaving the two sitting in silence.

It grew too long to be a gap, but it wasn’t comfortable in the slightest.   
It became clear that while Tommy had grown and changed, Boffy was still the same fool he always had been. Tommy had learnt responsibility- apparently the hard way- and Boffy had just gotten slightly better at running from his problems, and even then he could barely do that.

“...I’m sorry, Boffy.”   
“Wait- What?” Tommy’s words took him off guard.   
“I… Should’ve brought you with me. But I- I let my ego get the better of me. I saw a chance to get bigger, more popular, and I… I took it. Without any regard for how it’d hurt you.”   
“Tommy- I… I don’t think you did the wrong thing. I probably would’ve done the same.”    
“But I-”   
“Besides.” Boffy sighed “I’m used to it. Whatever helps you in the long run, I guess.” 

“...That doesn’t help me feel less guilty, you know. You might be used to it, but that doesn’t mean it’s right. You- You deserve better, Boffy.”   
  


He wasn’t sure when he started to cry, but when Tommy pulled him into a hug, he almost felt okay again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again; Follow my tumblr @boffyyyy. I will put this at the end of every chapter and we're only four chapters in and I'm running out of creative ways to tell you to follow me. Oh No.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! If you did, you should follow me on tumblr. It's @boffyyyy, which was somehow not taken? Boffy really doesn't get the appreciation he deserves..


End file.
